Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Succession Season 4.About six episodes after his father's death on Succession, Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) has finally been struck by the wave of grief. And it manifested in the worst way possible, in the worst time possible — as a complete mental breakdown while giving his father's eulogy. It's one of the rarer displays of vulnerability afforded by Roman, one that lets the audience see and appreciate a genuine human behind the goblin-like persona. It's an extremely tragic breakdown to watch, one that reduces a grown man into his child self, insecure and inadequate. But Roman doesn't exist in this isolated scene, and Roman wasn't built in a day. He is a culmination of his own self-destructive acts and, perhaps, a karmic consequence of his misdeeds. So, it's worth taking a step back and looking at Roman in all his dimensions and asking if we, the audience, really need to feel bad for him — especially after that bombshell fight between the brothers in the show's series finale.
Roman Has His Most Intense Breakdown at Logan's Funeral
Succession often extracts an emotional toll from its characters. Many of them have gone through mental breakdowns, but none have been as intense as Roman's. Though the meltdown came late in the show, hints of it were scattered throughout the show. Roys, in general, are a repressive breed, but even among them, it's Roman who suppresses his feelings the most. When Logan (Brian Cox) dies, everyone except Roman grieves in some form. Roman seemed somewhat aloof, which was suspicious, considering that he was closest to Logan. The volcanic outpour was inevitable, and when it finally happened, it was explosive.
The episode starts with Roman, bouncy on his feet, preparing for a speech that, he assumes, would bring applause and cheers of admiration. "See Shivvy cry. See Kenny die," he proclaims. "See Roman the showman light up the sky." One can almost see chutzpah dripping from his words. When Shiv announces her pregnancy, Rome asks, "Is it mine?" Even for Roman, it feels too crass and is indicative of how bold and transgressive he planned to be at the funeral — but when Roman gets up on the stage, it's an absolute disaster. He keeps fiddling with his notes, stumbles, and stutters at every other word, goes blank for a bit, and finally breaks down into a sobbing mess. Then, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) takes the stage, gives a powerful speech, and comes out as the "winner of the funeral," as Roman had mockingly prophesied.
For the rest of the episode, all of Roman's quirks and traits are washed off, and he remains broken and blank, that is until the very end. After receiving a dressing down from Kendal for wrongly trusting Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), Roman absolutely loses it and marches off into the protests, swimming against the wave of protestors, calling them morons, and eventually getting punched and knocked over. It's a free fall from the sky for Roman, and what's worse, he gets trampled by very the mortals he looks down on.
Roman Has Always Been a Horrible Human Being
Roman's breakdown had a very tragic tone to it and was intended to evoke sadness on behalf of him. But does he really deserve such compassion? Initially, Roman was written as the sadistic Joffrey-type figure. But over time, Roman grew more complex and nuanced than a torturer could ever hope to. There have been rare occasions where he's shown warmth and compassion, like when he stooped down to help Kerry (Zoe Winters) with her belongings after Marcia (Hiam Abbass) told her off at Logan's wake. Roman isn't a flat, one-dimensional chaotic evil character, but it doesn't dismiss the fact that he is one of the most spiteful ones. Every Roy family member (except Uncle Ewan, of course) is cruel. They hold little regard for other people as long as it means getting what they want. But Roman goes a step further and actually derives sick pleasure off of others' humiliation and tragedy.
In the very first episode of Succession, when the family flies off to play a game of baseball, Roman invites a random kid to play and promises him a million dollars if he successfully scores a home run. He even writes a check and dangles it in front of the kid. It may have been loose change to Roman, but it was a life-changing sum to the kid. The kid (and even his father in the background) is visibly nervous and perhaps the most pressurized he's ever been in his life. The kid fails to score a home run by a small margin, and Rome holds the check in front of his face and tears it to shreds. And the kid walks back feeling disappointed, unable to even meet his parent's eyes. It's one of those regretful memories that latch onto a person for the rest of their lives, but it's an utterly negligible and forgettable moment for Roman because he is extremely inconsiderate.
In the first season, when he's in charge of the satellite launch in Japan, he cuts corners to coincide the launch date with Shiv's wedding. Due to the neglect, the rocket explodes on the launch pad. He watches the explosion live from his cell phone and insouciantly proceeds to enjoy the party, ignoring the whole affair. It's later learned that no one died in the explosion, but even if someone had, Roman's reaction may not have been much different.
Roman's Issues Don't Give Him a Free Pass
Despite his cruelty, Roman still remains one of the more beloved characters of the show. The audience often gives him a free pass for his snarky humor and sad puppy-dog eyes. Quite often, they find ways to feel bad for him, enticed by the peculiarities of his character. Kendall once told Roman that he was not a real person — and it's true that Roman's humanity gets lost beneath his robotic veneer of insult-spouting smugness. Even the humor he so proudly flaunts around is a facade. All his life, he's used humor as a defense mechanism, collecting the hurt directed towards him and turning them into nasty jokes to avoid getting hurt and having to sit down and deal with his emotions. Indeed, Roman has a knack for turning something painful into something pleasurable, so is it any surprise that he gets sexual gratification out of being humiliated?
It's true that Roman has the oddest behavioral traits. Roman is constantly in a state of unease. It feels like he's been covered in itching powder forever, and he just can't sit still, constantly twitching and turning and unable to hold his attention to important things around him. And, of course, there's his weird, repressed sex life. As with most aspects of his life, the only way Roman is able to derive sexual gratification is by being transgressive, by pretending to make love to a corpse, or by being humiliated by a much older lady at work.
Viewers have been given brief glimpses into Roman's childhood to make sense of his oddness, the most significant of which is the dog pound story. As Roman remembers, Kendal used to lock him in a dog cage, with a leash around his neck, and made him eat dog food before he could finally come out. After this instance, Roman started wetting his bed and was sent to a military school by his dad. But Connor (Alan Ruck), as an objective observer, later reveals that Roman asked to be put in the cage because he enjoyed it, and he didn't eat dog food but chocolate cake. Roman wasn't sent to military school against his will; he wanted to go.
Roman is an unreliable narrator, and this is not to say that he hasn't got trauma. He does. He was physically abused by his dad and bullied by his siblings. It doesn't justify his cruelty, but what trauma often does is that it distorts the recollection of its survivors — and more importantly, it distorts the view of the audience, leading them to recontextualize everything Roman does as a part of his trauma, and it makes them discount his ill-doings to a great extent. Although the final fight between the siblings in Succession's series finale exposes some particularly ugly truths — including racist remarks about Kendall's children — perhaps Roman himself sums it up best when he says, "We are bullshit. ... It's all fucking nothing, and I'm telling you this because I know it, okay? We're nothing."
Every episode of Succession is now available to stream on Max.